The British Food Journal Volume 61 Issue 7 1959

Abstract

The liability of a master for the acts of his servant or agent is a well‐established principle of many branches of English Law. It is in fact as old as the Common Law itself and is considered to have originated in the responsibility of a master for hired menials who had no legal capacity and were part of the household for which the master had to answer in every way. In the law of tort, especially the tort of negligence, it is still firmly entrenched and the rule is that a master is liable for any tort which the servant commits in the course of his employment (Winfield). The servant is also liable and a servant, for the purpose of vicarious liability, is one whose work is under the control of another and “in the course of employment” includes any act committed as an incident to something the servant is employed to do. Apart from statutory modifications, the rule has been perceptibly changing in its applications through the years, even in both directions. Originally, hospital authorities held no responsibility for acts committed by their medical staff; the responsibility was entirely the doctor's, a legal relationship, however, which was always regarded as something of an anachronism as between employer and employed. Perhaps this conception was an error stemming from an early High Court decision, but gradually the position has changed, quite apart from the National Health Service Act, 1946, towards the hospital authority's responsibility to the injured patient just as much as that borne by the officer whose failure caused the injury.

Citation

(1959), "The British Food Journal Volume 61 Issue 7 1959", British Food Journal, Vol. 61 No. 7, pp. 73-92. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb011568